


You Should Fix It, Don't Throw It Away

by Tam_Cranver



Category: The A-Team (2010)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/pseuds/Tam_Cranver
Summary: What exactly is the best next step to take after you've unmasked a rogue CIA agent, blown up a bunch of storage containers, and gone on the run from the US government--again? The answer may or may not be to take a relaxing beach vacation.





	You Should Fix It, Don't Throw It Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kikibug13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/gifts).



> The title comes from "Don't Worry" by Frank Turner. The story contains some ableist language and brief references to suicidal thoughts, though there's nothing graphic.

Face wasn’t the kind to toot his own horn—oh, who was he kidding, he absolutely was the kind to toot his own horn, and it was well-deserved, because he had absolutely outdone himself this time.

An ex-girlfriend had a rental house in the Outer Banks and was one of those radical anti-government types who had absolutely no problem harboring federal fugitives, and so instead of ducking in and out of pay-by-the-hour motels run by sketchy guys in sweat-stained tee-shirts with obscene jokes on them, Face and the guys were laying low in a tastefully decorated four-bedroom with private beach access, a Jacuzzi, and a recently remodeled kitchen. Thanks, Audrey, but also thanks, Face, whose ability to sweet-talk had totally scored them these choice digs.

It would have been perfect, if Face could have just _relaxed_ a little bit.

He sighed, took another look at the perfect sunset from his perfect seat on the back deck, and went back inside to refresh his margarita from the blender.

Sometime while he’d been outside, Murdock had moved in to the kitchen and was throwing together what smelled vaguely like chili. Literally throwing—he was tossing in chunks of what looked like pineapple and Brussels sprouts from across the kitchen, hitting the pot with what would have been surprising accuracy if you didn’t know Murdock.

“Hey, buddy, what’s cooking?” asked Face, helping himself to the last of the margarita before Murdock decided to add it to the chili.

Murdock grinned. “Been thinking about this one for a while. Now, obviously, a true Texas chili don’t have beans or tomatoes, but a little pineapple for some of that acid edge? No rules about that.” He tossed in another pineapple chunk. For some reason, he had the word “Emissions?” written in black Sharpie on the back of his hand.

“Smells good,” said Face, who was frankly relieved to see Murdock in a good mood. He’d been understandably up and down since they’d escaped from the Port of Los Angeles, but Face wasn’t 100% sure what the rest of the team would do if Murdock sank into a genuine low point.

Murdock scooped some chili into a plastic cup with Spongebob Squarepants on it—one of the dishes Audrey kept around for when families with small children rented the house. “Here,” he said. “Try it!”

Carefully, sniffing discreetly in case Murdock had put any Windex or toilet cleaner into it, Face tipped some chili into his mouth. It was actually really good—the pineapple had been a good call, and Face didn’t generally like Brussels sprouts, but they weren’t bad here. He was about to tell Murdock so when his teeth closed on a chunk of something spongey. He spat it out. “What the hell, Murdock? Why Styrofoam?”

Rolling his eyes like it should have been obvious, Murdock said, “Come on, man, you know that stuff ain’t biodegradable. Just sits around in landfills. But you and me? We got the power to biodegrade it.” He tapped meaningfully on his stomach. “Good old stomach acid. Plus, it’s chewy! Get a little texture in there.”

“Uh-huh,” said Face, and tossed the piece of Styrofoam into the trash. “Where’s Hannibal?”

Murdock gestured with a thumb toward the ceiling. “Bonus room. He’s doing some research.”

Face frowned. “Research on what?” They hadn’t come up with any brilliant plans yet for getting the government off their backs—well, not any plans that didn’t actually involve overthrowing the government, of which Hannibal had several in his pocket as a last resort—but they’d all agreed that nobody would try anything without keeping the others in a loop. The four of them were pretty much the only people in the world that each of them trusted right now, and Face didn’t think for a minute that Hannibal would do anything that would blow things for them here without having some plan to take care of it, but the days of him telling Face, Murdock, and BA about the plans on a need-to-know basis were done. They had to be.

“Eh,” said Murdock. “Last time I was up there he was watching makeup tutorials.”

“Uh. Okay.” Face thought about asking Murdock for more details, but decided he’d be better off asking Hannibal himself. He lay a hand on Murdock’s shoulder and patted it. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Yup,” said Murdock. His smile didn’t distract Face from the way that he twitched his shoulder out from under Face’s hand, and Face felt the kind of pang in his gut that came when something went wrong on a plan. Something that was maybe a bad omen.

Murdock hadn’t been wrong, though—thirty seconds later, Face opened the door of the upstairs bonus room to find Hannibal watching a video on contouring on a laptop he’d scored from an old Iraq buddy. “Come in, Face,” said Hannibal without turning his head to look, like the creepily omniscient motherfucker that he was.

Face stepped in, feeling a little on unsteady ground. He’d felt like that a lot, lately, but the feeling got worse every time he was reminded that he and the guys weren’t exactly working on a common mission right now, beyond not getting caught. “What’s up with that?” he asked, gesturing toward the screen. “Feel like covering up some wrinkles or something?”

He’d half been hoping that Hannibal would call him on being a shit, but instead Hannibal frowned thoughtfully at the video. “It’s really remarkable, the difference in appearance you can produce,” he said. “A little hair dye, a little concealer and highlighter, you can look like a completely different person.”

Face sighed. Of course that’s where Hannibal’s mind was at. In whatever long game Hannibal was planning to clear their names and records, of course he wanted disguise as a tool in his back pocket. But Face’s face was his main asset. Hence the name. He wasn’t interested in letting Hannibal practice his blending on him. “Yeah, okay, man,” he said. “Look, Murdock’s making chili, but we’d better get some backup food for dinner in case things get ugly with the chili. We don’t want a repeat of the antifreeze incident.”

Finally Hannibal turned to look at him. “Good thinking,” he said, and frowned. “Don’t suppose you can take Murdock with you, can you? Get him out of the house a bit?”

“I’ll ask,” said Face with a shrug. “But I don’t think he’ll be into it.” Murdock wasn’t really into leaving the house these days, generally speaking.

He wasn’t this time, either. BA was swinging on a hammock on the lower deck, reading a book, when Face came to see if he wanted to come with. The hammock wasn’t big enough to fit all of him, so he’d swung his legs out over one side of it, pushing himself calmly back and forth as he flipped the pages. He didn’t seem to have a problem relaxing in the beach getaway, Face thought with envy.

“Hey, big guy, whatcha reading?”

BA wordlessly tilted the cover of the book up so that Face could read it: it was the _Tao Te Ching_.

Face groaned inwardly. He had thought BA was done with all the soul-searching. If they had to talk BA through another crisis of nonviolent conscience in the middle of a crisis, Face was going to…well, there wasn’t really much he _could_ do, he didn’t really outrank BA anymore, but he was going to be seriously frustrated.

But it wasn’t like there was anything better for them to do right now than lay low and read Chinese philosophy, so Face let it go. “Cool,” he said. “I’m running over to the SeaMart to get something for dinner. You want to come?”

BA gave him a look. “Murdock cooking?”

“Chili,” said Face. “Last I checked, it tasted good, but he’s throwing Styrofoam in it, so I thought we’d better have a Plan B.”

BA nodded. Of all of them, BA liked Murdock’s cooking the best—some of Murdock’s most successful inventions had come from requests and suggestions of BA’s—but he wasn’t and had never been willing to fuck around with the inedible shit Murdock felt compelled to eat in his stranger moods. “Yeah, all right,” he said. “Let’s get some scallops. No point being by the ocean and shit if we don’t get some decent seafood.”

The SeaMart was probably the place in this tourist-y little neighborhood that Face visited the most. Grocery store-slash-surf shop-slash-coffee shop, it was owned by a middle-aged woman named Mercedes who was, despite being apparently immune to any and all kinds of flirtation, a valuable resource in terms of knowing everything going on in the town. It was down the street, maybe a five-minute walk from the beach house, which meant that Face was over there nearly daily, picking up odds and ends and gathering gossip. Among its other virtues, its selection of hot sauce and fresh seafood was fantastic. Face was a real fan.

The place was nearly empty when Face and BA walked in, except for Dan Huff, who was examining a shelf full of jellies and preserves with a thoughtful expression. Dan’s jolly, weather-beaten face brightened when he saw Face and BA. “Hey, neighbors!” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a few days—you still enjoying yourselves over there?”

According to the grapevine, Dan owned almost half the rental houses in town, and he had his fingers in a lot of other pies, as well—Mercedes was his daughter-in-law, his nephew Chuck owned a boat rental place, his brother Bill ran the post office and the bank. Face thought that was probably why he acted like the concierge at a hotel all the time. It was annoying, but harmless, so long as he didn’t get too nosy about the four “college friends” living next door.

“Oh, yeah, we’re having a great time!” Face gave Dan his most winning smile. “Cookouts, swimming, taking in some of those sunsets from the back deck…man, this place is just what the doctor ordered.”

Dan smiled and reached out to give Face a jovial pat on the arm. “Glad to hear it! Leave all that tourist stuff for somebody who’s got too much time on their hands, that’s what I say—place like this is where you get a real vacation.”

“You seen Mercedes?” asked BA, who had limited patience for Dan’s small talk or his intermittent attempts to sell them a fishing trip through Chuck’s boat rental. “We’re looking for scallops.”

Dan’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly, but he said, “Yeah, sure thing. Pretty sure there were some scallops in the delivery today, but if there aren’t, I _know_ there’s some great shrimp, or swordfish, if you have a taste for it. Hey, Mercedes!” He turned to shout into the back room. “It’s Frank and Barry from next door. You have any scallops?”

Mercedes emerged from the back room, wiping her hands on a towel, and gave the three men a tight smile. “You’re in luck,” she said. “We got some real nice-looking ones in this afternoon. Come on over and look.”

Face cast an eye over the scallops in one of the open trays where Mercedes kept the fresh fish and sea food, listening with half an ear to Mercedes and Dan chatting in the background. Could Mercedes’s son Kyle come help Dan and Chuck clean the algae off one of Chuck’s boats? No, he and his friends had driven over the outlet mall and wouldn’t be back until late. Dan would be willing to pay for the help. Mercedes would tell him, but she wasn’t sure he’d be interested, it was like pulling teeth to get that boy to do anything useful during the summer. Damn kids.

Nothing about law enforcement hanging around, asking about unfamiliar characters in the area, and Face felt himself relax a little. Next to him, BA frowned at the scallops.

Eventually, they picked out some scallops, some white wine and lemon juice to cook them in, and some wacky novelty beers, which Face hoped would be enough to distract Murdock from being offended about his chili. While Mercedes rung them up, Dan, after darting a quick look at BA, handed Face a flyer. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t want to bother you all while you’re relaxing and catching up, but if you’re interested, my nephew Chuck just hired a guy who offers parasailing rides. Tons of experience! I mean, I’m a little old for that kind of thing, but it’s totally safe, if any of you guys is interested.”

Face took the flier. A little time in the air might be just the thing to get Murdock out of his own head. “Thanks,” he said. “We’ll think about it.”

The walk back to the beach house was short, but felt longer lugging around a heavy back of seafood and booze. The handle of the plastic bag in Face’s hand was cutting into his palm, and he shifted it to lift from the bottom. He almost missed BA’s low question. “Face?”

Face looked up. “Yeah?”

“You got any ideas?”

It was a broad question, and not the kind BA usually asked. “About what?”

BA looked up, watching a pelican glide from a telephone pole, before giving Face a glance from the side. “What happened with Morrison and Pike was crazy. I ain’t saying I want a repeat of that, and there ain’t a thing wrong with taking some downtime. But we can’t stay here forever, just drinking fancy cocktails and napping on the hammock. The government pinned a pretty big target on our backs, and I can’t see them just letting that go. They gonna go through all our associates and find out that you and Audrey dated and that she’s got this house. We’re on borrowed time.”

Wasn’t that the truth. “I know,” Face said, swallowing a bitter taste with the words. “I know, I just—the boss took the thing with Morrison harder than anybody, and Murdock….” He shrugged. “Just trying not to push it, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” BA grimaced. “But we gotta come up with something. Nobody gonna tell us what to do anymore—we gotta make our own plans.”

Face knew BA was right. They’d needed the break, the time to recover from both the various small injuries they’d accumulated and the shock of realizing that nobody—except maybe Charisa—had their backs. But time was wasting.

It weighed heavy on Face’s stomach, and he didn’t like the feeling. He shoved it down and smiled at BA. “Don’t sweat it, Bosco,” he said. “We’ll talk with Hannibal and Murdock tonight at dinner, and I can give Sosa a call if we need to. We’ll come up with something.”

It was obvious that BA was unsatisfied with this response, but he kept his peace until they got back to the house.

Somehow Hannibal had gotten Murdock to take the Styrofoam out of the chili, and they ate some alongside the scallops. Murdock had written some more on his arms—Face could make out disjointed phrases like “Double jeopardy” and “elephants—the art of distraction!” in black marker snaking down from his wrists—but he seemed in good spirits, and Hannibal seemed satisfied with himself. That usually meant he was going to be obnoxious as hell but also that he had a plan.

As the meal was winding down, Hannibal said, “Face, you’ve still got that burner phone with Sosa’s number, don’t you?”

It wasn’t even a question—of course he did, and of course Hannibal knew that. “Sure,” said Face anyway. “What’s up, boss?”

“Well,” said Hannibal, “recent history shows that the fate of whistleblowers rests largely on public opinion. Nobody cares if a handful of rogue Army Rangers or a CIA agent with delusions of grandeur goes to prison. But you throw innocent men in prison to cover up shady dealings by the government? And the press knows it? Well, then you get protests. Petitions. Political pressure.”

“So, what,” asked Face, “you want to go to the press with our story?” He could see the benefits of it in the long term—in the short term, though, it seemed likely to bring a hail of shit down on them.

But Hannibal shook his head. “Not right away,” he said. “Before we go public, we build our case. We see what the Defense Department was trying to hush up by throwing us under the bus.”

“What, Lynch being a bad guy and blowing a bunch of stuff up at the Port of Los Angeles ain’t enough?” Murdock wondered.

“No,” said Hannibal. “I’m willing to bet that some of the dirt Lynch was rolling around in, he was rolling around in on government orders. We demonstrate that elements within the military and CIA were conspiring to have us take the fall for their own crimes, we build up sympathy with the public.” He tapped quickly on the table a handful of times, a sign of nerves from someone who generally didn’t seem to get nervous about anything. “And that’s where Sosa comes in, Face. If she’s willing to do a little digging on her end, give us some solid proof we can work with, I’m pretty sure I can help keep the powers that be off _all_ of our backs.”

Face shrugged. “I don’t know if she’ll go for it, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

“I don’t know, Hannibal,” said BA slowly. “Two sides can play at that game. I did some shit for the Army, too. I ain’t ashamed of what I did—you know me, I was never the kind to follow an order that I thought was gonna put me on the side of the devils—but we all been involved in stuff that doesn’t play well on the front page news.”

Murdock nodded. “Definitely. Absolutely. People who don’t like the military-industrial complex aren’t generally real open to infighting from the tools of said military-industrial complex. We hit them, they release details of our missions—the kind that didn’t make it into official reports.”

“Fool’s right,” said BA, nodding at Murdock. “And we try to correct the record, people maybe write off both sides as full of shit and go with the side giving ‘em press releases from the White House.”

Hannibal sighed, looking old, and Face felt a sudden rush of…well, dread, maybe, or anger at the world, or irritation at BA and Murdock. Hannibal wasn’t supposed to look old, or tired. Face wasn’t ready to step into his shoes. “It’s not a guarantee, I know,” said Hannibal. “The problem with any plan involving public opinion is that you can’t always predict how that many people are going to react. It’s an unknown factor. But I just don’t see how it can be handled without getting them involved. As long as the DOJ and the Defense Department can cover it all up, they’re going to, and they’re going to discredit us as much as they can along the way. The only way out that I can see is getting ahead of them. Dragging their lies out into the sunlight before they have a chance to spin their narratives.”

“Hey,” said Face, wanting to cut the conversation off before it turned more heated, “let me get in touch with Charisa and see what she says. If she says she can’t do it, we may have to revise the plan anyway, but unless anybody’s got something better, let’s start with that. Getting blackmail material’s not a bad move no matter how we play this.” No one seemed inclined to argue, so Face grinned. “Great.” He dug the flier for parasailing out of his pocket and tossed it at Murdock. “Hey, buddy, take a look at that. Sound like something you’d be into?”

Murdock frowned but picked up the slightly crumpled purple flier. As he read it, Face was happy to see his face open up into an almost incredulous smile. “Well, hell,” he said. “Doesn’t really compare to flying a tank, but who knows, I play the wind right, could end up flying a boat.”

“Yeah, let’s try not to freak out Chuck’s new parasailing guy,” Face said, but his mood already felt lighter. To Hannibal and BA, he said, “Let’s make a day out of it. We could do some fishing, do some sunbathing, play a little volleyball—we could do the parasailing, too, if you wanted.”

“Hell will freeze over first,” said BA flatly.

“Aw, come on, Bosco! It’s literally embarrassing to me how little you guys are taking advantage of this place. And it’s suspicious, too,” he said before either of them could object. “Who goes on a beach vacation and doesn’t go to the beach?”

Hannibal stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well, you’re not wrong. And I wouldn’t mind getting a look at Chuck’s boats.”

Face contemplated asking why the hell Hannibal wanted to check out Chuck’s boats, then decided it wasn’t worth it. Knowing Hannibal, it could mean he was thinking about going fishing, or thinking about going on an undercover night mission that involved Face scuba diving through the ocean with a knife in his teeth. Either way, Face didn’t really want to think about it right now.

“It’s settled then,” he said, reaching for the phone he used for “Frank.” “I’ll call Chuck.”

Later that evening, when he’d left BA reading his book and Hannibal supposedly heading for bed and Murdock rearranging the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle from the TV room into a sculpture of an avocado, he went down to the lower level of the beach house to call Charisa.

She picked up after only one ring. “Face,” she said. “I thought we agreed you’d only call in case of emergency.”

“No, I said I’d only call if I needed you,” Face corrected. “And, I mean, I need you all the time.” Before Charisa could get pissed at him, he got serious. “But right now what I need is dirt on your boss at the DOD.”

“ _Excuse me_?”

Burner phone or no burner phone, it wasn’t a good idea to give anyone listening in the time to trace their location, so Face summed up Hannibal’s idea as briefly and in as little detail as he could. Charisa could pick up the rest without him saying the specifics. She’d always been able to.

When he’d finished, she sighed. “I don’t know, Face. I’m already on thin ice around here—the higher-ups know we dated, and I haven’t exactly been subtle about thinking that what they’re doing to you guys is bullshit.”

“That’s why it’ll work,” said Face, putting more confidence into his voice than he felt. “They’ll be expecting you to file complaints and go over their heads and be a pain in the ass about it. They won’t be expecting you to dig up dirt on the sly.”

She made an inarticulate noise of frustration and disgust. “I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises. Don’t call again. If I find anything I think you can use, I’ll get in touch.” She hung up without a goodbye.

Face could sleep under just about any conditions—it was a skill he’d learned even before he’d joined up—but he’d have been lying if he claimed he slept well.

The next morning, Face was the last up. When he made it up to the breakfast room, the sun was already well up, and Hannibal, BA, and Murdock were settled around the table, their plates empty in front of them. Someone had gotten doughnuts, which were sitting on the kitchen counter. Hannibal was sipping coffee; BA was still reading his book, and Murdock was reading it, too, hanging over BA’s shoulder.

Face grabbed a doughnut, noting with pleasant surprise that someone had gotten a lemon-frosted cake doughnut for him, and settled in on the table. “How’s the book? Anything exciting happen?”

BA fixed him with an unamused look. “I’m thinkin’ about humility this morning. About how important it is to do things because they’re right and not so that people will like you.”

Murdock echoed this with something in Mandarin, and Face decided to ignore BA’s jibe. “You guys starting a book club, Murdock?”

Murdock shrugged. “Hey, man, the situation the four of us are in, I figure we can use any wisdom we can get.”

Whatever floated their boats, Face supposed. “Well, here’s some wisdom for you,” he said. “We’re meeting Chuck’s guy Adrian at 2:30, so I was thinking we could get in some beach time before that. Get a little lunch, maybe do a little surfing, catch some rays…”

“Some rays?” asked Hannibal, raising an eyebrow. “How much more tan do you think you need?”

“Colonel, we’re at a beach.” Face had gotten into pretty good shape in prison—artificial lifter shape, though, the kind of fit and tanned that made people assume he was a ditz. The weeks on the run had pared him down a little, made him rougher around the edges and a little more dangerous-looking. Ideally, Face thought, he could straddle the line, hit the kind of normal and attractive that drew attention but not too much, maximized his abilities both to blend in and to stand out when he needed to.

Apparently writing that one off as a loss, Hannibal went back to the newspaper he’d been reading and said, “Don’t come crying to me when you develop some kind of cancerous growth.”

“Anyway,” said Face, turning back to Murdock and BA, “get your trunks out and get ready to socialize. We’re not fugitives on the run, we’re four guys having a little college reunion and enjoying ourselves.”

“Man, you don’t have to tell me how to relax on a beach, Face.” BA closed his book.

“Yeah,” Murdock chimed in. “Hell, I saw a grill down on the pool deck, over by the fun noodles. We could maybe take it with us, grill up some hot dogs and burgers down there. Nothin’ says beach vacation like a cookout.”

Face eyed Murdock critically. He looked awake, aware, and more or less on planet Earth. On the other hand, his arms were completely covered in black Sharpie, and Face could see more words peeking out from under the collar of the tee-shirt he was wearing under his tacky Hawaiian shirt. Face kind of shuddered to think what Murdock looked like with his shirt off right now. “Hey,” he asked, as neutrally as he could. “You thinking about getting another tattoo?” He gestured toward Murdock’s hand, which was sitting on the table with the words “Tabloid fiesta—turn into Batboy?” scribbled across the back of it.

Murdock’s eyes narrowed slightly, but his relaxed expression didn’t change, and he said lightly, “Nah, man, just keeping track of my thoughts. I’ve been thinking about this parasailing thing, and that made me think—what do you know about the aerodynamic properties of fun noodles?”

“Not a goddamned thing, buddy,” said Face.

“Lightweight. Flexible,” Murdock said, counting the properties off on his fingers. “Not as durable as aluminum or its alloys, but the higher quality ones ain’t nothing to sneeze at, especially if you got something to hold them together in shape. And you know the best part? A hang glider made out of fun noodles would be amphibious.” He nodded, apparently to himself. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna take notes this afternoon. I think the time is right for the fun noodle hang glider.”

“I think the time is right for us to buy you a padded helmet so you don’t kill yourself doing this dumbass shit,” said BA.

“Aw, Bosco!” Murdock curled one hand into a fist and clutched it to his heart with the other hand. “That’s sweet, man. I care about your head, too.”

Whatever the deal was with the Sharpie, Face didn’t think he was going to get anything more out of Murdock now. “Hey, Murdock, as long as you’re working on the fun noodle hang glider plans, why don’t you keep your shirt on this afternoon?”

“Good thinking, Faceman,” said Murdock, tapping the side of his nose. “Intellectual property theft—always gotta watch out for it.”

Hannibal looked up from his newspaper. “Well. I suppose if we’re really going to do this, we need to work on our cover story.”

“Why?” It wasn’t complicated. It had worked for Face—and Hannibal and BA, on the occasions they accompanied him on errands—just fine.

“Because,” said Hannibal, “it’s close enough to the truth that one of us might slip crucial details. I’m sure you’ve done a fine job constructing the cover, Face,” he said, though Face hadn’t said anything. “But I think we’ll need to determine which stories belong to these college friends and which belong to this A-Team.”

It wasn’t until hours later that Face realized that Hannibal had been saying, in his own sneaky way, that he considered Face and BA and Murdock his friends. It wasn’t a big deal, but it still settled something in Face that hardly ever settled down.

The weather was beautiful, high seventies and clear, with only a few wisps of clouds floating over the horizon. The beach near where Chuck and Adrian and the rest of Chuck’s guys docked their boats wasn’t terribly crowded, but Dan and his grandson Kyle were there, and Dan was, unsurprisingly, happy to introduce them to some of the regular tourists. BA was chill, Hannibal was in the serious mode he generally used on official matters, and Murdock was coming across as ‘life of the party’ crazy rather than, well, his less pleasant kinds of crazy, so Face counted the outing a success. He managed to find a group of twenty-somethings who had a volleyball game going, and he joined in for a while, feeling pretty confident that everything was under control.

When he cried off after the second game—loss, but only because it would have been suspicious and kind of a dick move to massacre a bunch of vacationing kids twice in a row—he noticed Mercedes’s son, Kyle, standing around awkwardly. Face put down his water bottle and went over. “Hey, Kyle,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Kyle shrugged noncommittally. He was one of those teenagers who grew up unevenly, still short but with enough facial hair that he had to shave. Having been a late bloomer himself, Face could sympathize.

“How’s your mom?”

Another shrug. “Pissed. She didn’t want me to come here.”

It wasn’t exactly a rough party or anything, but from what Face could tell, Mercedes had a hell of a time getting Kyle to buckle down and do his homework or chores or anything even remotely productive. Maybe it was one of the things her husband had handled when he was alive. Maybe her husband’s death was why Kyle was such a pain now. Face was no expert in child psychology, though, and it wasn’t his job to babysit, so all he said in response to this was “Tell her I say hi” before going over to where Adrian was walking Murdock through the parasailing.

Adrian, Chuck’s new guy, was stocky and earnest, and thorough as hell, going through the workings of the life jacket and the fire extinguisher and the parachute with excruciating detail. Face was half afraid Murdock would blow their cover, but instead he was playing up the ignorance, matching Adrian earnest for earnest and asking questions about everything from the color of the parachute to how to call the coast guard in an emergency. Face could tell that BA was about ready to tell both of them to shut the hell up.

Face sidled up to Hannibal and gave him a questioning look. Hannibal grinned, and in a low voice said, “Good call, kid.” He nodded toward Murdock, and Face studied him, and then BA. They seemed…well, Murdock seemed annoying, and BA seemed annoyed, and that was honestly closer to their normal selves than Face had seen them in a while. He let himself smile.

They watched as Adrian and the boat pushed off, getting smaller as it moved out into the water. After a while, the parachute filled with air, and Murdock rose with it, wafting above and behind the boat. It wasn’t the same as flying, Face thought, but maybe it would get the job done.

“Well, looks like he’s having a good time!”

Face hadn’t heard Dan walk up, but he didn’t startle easily, and he turned and said, “Hell, yeah!”

Dan grinned wryly. “Not to everyone’s taste, I know”—he gestured around at himself, Face, Hannibal, and BA. “Hell, you couldn’t pay me to go up there. But a lot of people love it.” He joined them in watching Murdock. There was something a little different about Dan today, Face thought. He was a little less salesman-smiley. A little more relaxed, maybe. For a retired guy, he seemed to be pretty busy. Maybe today was one of the days he let his side hustles get by without him.

“So, Frank,” said Dan after a minute. “What is it you do for a living?”

BA looked like he was thinking about giving Dan an unfriendly expression, but they’d prepared for this (well, Face had had his cover in place as soon as Audrey said they could stay in her rental house). “Marketing consultant,” Face said easily. “I do a lot of strategizing for companies, give them feedback on ad campaigns and digital strategies, that kind of thing.”

Dan whistled. “Whew! Better you than me—I think the digital revolution is just going to have to get along without me. My grandson still has to explain how my smartphone works.” He looked to Hannibal and BA. “You guys in marketing, too?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Hannibal mildly. “I’m more of a corporate troubleshooter.”

“I’m in sales,” said BA.

“Well, no wonder you all needed a vacation,” said Dan, nodding. “I was in sales myself. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy myself, because I did—and did all right for myself, too, I don’t mind saying—but the stress does get to you.” He was quiet for a moment, staring out over the water, with its surfers and jet skis and the boat towing Murdock behind it. Face thought maybe the conversation was over, but then Dan said, “We’re having a little party next weekend. Kind of a neighborhood thing, mostly townies—me, Bill, Chuck and Emma, some of the guys who work for Chuck, you know, the whole crew. Bill’s grilling some steaks, Chuck’s gonna mix some fancy drinks. Stop on by, if you aren’t busy.”

“What, Bill and Chuck and Emma won’t mind hosting a group of tourists?” asked Face, wondering if there was any way the team could move on to their next location by the weekend. He couldn’t imagine that Dan and Bill threw much of a party.

“Oh, hey,” said Dan jovially, “you guys aren’t tourists. You’re practically colleagues!” He seemed to see someone on the beach, and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I gotta talk to a man about a fishing trip. Hey, Howard!” He made his way with surprising quickness across the sand.

As soon as he was out of earshot, BA said, “I ain’t going to his party.”

Face nodded. “Yeah, not my scene, either.”

Hannibal stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know—he certainly seems to know everybody. That might be useful.”

“Ugh.” If Face had had a beer, he would have taken a sip of it. Instead, he grabbed a surfboard, and he and BA spent half an hour or so catching waves.

When Murdock and Adrian finally came back in, Face had expected Murdock to be in the kind of giddy post-flight high that drove BA up the wall. Instead, he looked down as Adrian helped untangle him from the parasailing equipment, looking almost…subdued. Face felt his stomach sink.

“Hey, buddy,” he said when they’d thanked Adrian, “What’s up?”

Murdock scratched at his eyebrow, looking troubled, and cast a look back at Adrian. “Not here,” he said.

Face and Hannibal exchanged looks. This didn’t bode well.

They were about a block away from the beach when Murdock said, “You think Mercedes knows that Kyle’s smuggling drugs?”

Face felt his eyes grow huge. Next to him, BA stopped walking and said, “The fuck?” Hannibal gave Murdock a sharp look. “What are you talking about, Captain?”

“Saw him,” said Murdock, and he darted a look off to the side, not looking at anyone, before clearing his throat and saying, “Him and Chuck. They were out in one of those boats of Chuck’s—not the nice clean ones for the tourists, a junky one. They were sticking close to the shore, and they kept going in and out. In and out. In and out. Kind of like a dance, you know. I got into it, trying to figure out where they were gonna go next. Wasn’t even paying attention to what they were doing. And then I really looked, and it was like the music stopped. They were picking up packages. Every time they landed the boat, they’d dig in the sand and pull out a package.” Murdock’s eyes flicked back to Hannibal. “I ain’t an expert, but I’ve seen that before. You have, too.”

And the hell of it was, Face had. That Tuco operation had been a long time in the making, and Face had had his eyes opened as to just how many ways there were to get cocaine and opium from one place to another. But still….

“You never,” said BA incredulously. “You saw all that when you were parasailing?”

Murdock smiled flatly. “I got good eyes,” he said. “They don’t let you fly planes if you don’t.”

“Yeah, okay, but maybe you’re misinterpreting things,” said Face, his mind racing. “There could be a perfectly innocent explanation.”

“Like what, a scavenger hunt?” Murdock snorted. “I ain’t imagining things, Face. I know what I saw. This wasn’t no innocent treasure hunt. You and I both know what it looks like when cartels use jet skis and small boats to smuggle shit up from Central America, and that’s what this looked like to me.”

“I’m not saying you’re imagining things, Murdock,” Face said, keeping his voice even. “But you have to admit, you haven’t been at your best lately. And it’s fine,” he hurried to add. “It’s fine, we’re in a lousy situation, of course we’re all feeling paranoid. But man, you got out of a mental institution literally weeks ago, you got _shot in the head_ , and you’re eating Styrofoam, writing all over yourself, and refusing to leave the house. Let’s just—let’s just take a minute before we jump to any conclusions, okay?”

Murdock stared at him for a long moment, long enough to get uncomfortable, and Face had the sinking feeling that he’d said more than he should have.

Clearly, BA was feeling the same way, because he reached a hand for Murdock’s shoulder and said, “Hey, Murdock—”

But Murdock twitched away, something genuinely freaked in his eyes. “Don’t—don’t—” Rather than finish the sentence, he swallowed loudly and said, “You wanna know why I’m writing on myself? It’s so I don’t forget anything. Okay? That’s all it is.”

“Okay,” said Hannibal.

“Upside of electroshock therapy, it made the voices in my head that were telling me to kill myself go quiet for a little bit. Downside, it’s not too good for the short-term memory.” He shot a sharp look to Face. “And before you say a goddamned thing, I ain’t about to off myself. Okay? The four of us, we’re in this together, and I am not about to do anything to leave you guys alone. But that’s it, I’m writing on myself so I don’t forget things and so I can be helpful. And I’m trying to be helpful now. Me, I think sixteen’s a little young to be smuggling cocaine, but maybe you all disagree. Maybe you think bringing it up with his mother’s too big a risk, and we should mind our own business and lay low. But I thought you ought to know.”

Face felt frozen. He never asked Murdock about the months they’d been separated, the way he never asked BA or Hannibal. But if he’d known…he felt angry again, angry like he hadn’t felt since they’d discovered Morrison’s betrayal. Angry at Morrison, and angry at the army, and the DOD, and Charisa, and angry at himself. He was the one who had a way with words, and it was clear that he’d done more than piss Murdock off. He’d actually hurt him. Face and BA and Murdock and Hannibal pissed each other off all the time, but they were always supposed to have each other’s backs.

“So…what do we do?” he asked. His voice sounded weak to his own ears.

“Can’t go to the cops,” said BA pragmatically.

Murdock grinned crookedly. “I guess the word of a crazy person probably ain’t enough to get a search warrant.”

BA gave Murdock an irritated look. “We’re wanted fugitives, fool. And I wouldn’t go to the police even if we could. I don’t want to get this kid in trouble. But Chuck, and whoever the hell else is getting this kid mixed up in their shit?” He smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice expression. “Wouldn’t mind having a couple of minutes alone in a room with them.”

“Me neither,” Hannibal put in. “But you’re right, calling the police is a nonstarter.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I for one would be interested in finding the ‘whoever else.’ It seems unlikely to me that Chuck and Kyle are running this operation alone.”

“We dig around too deep,” Murdock pointed out, “we maybe stir up a hornets’ nest. My experience with drug smugglers hasn’t made me think they’re real concerned with the well-being of the low ones on the totem pole. Or their families. Or random bystanders.”

“So maybe the first thing is we take what we know to Mercedes,” Face said. “If she’s in on it, we tip her off, and maybe she leads us to the rest of the ring. We decide whether it’s too big of a risk to take them down. If she isn’t, maybe she gets Kyle out of there without us getting involved further.”

“Or she doesn’t believe us and gets angry about us accusing her baby of breaking federal drug enforcement laws.” BA sighed. “Not a lot of great options on the table. What do you think, Hannibal?”

Hannibal tapped on his chin. “I think we make arrangements to leave town as soon as possible. And we talk to Mercedes. She knows everyone in town; if she doesn’t know about it, she knows people who do, even if she’s unaware of it. The more knowledge we have of this drug running scheme, the better our plan going forward can be.”

“So much for a relaxing time at the beach,” Face grumbled.

The next day, Face was elected to be the one to reach out to Mercedes, because of course he was. He was the one who’d had most of the contact with the townspeople, and he was the one who was most likely to be able to talk his way out of trouble if need be.

He picked his time carefully. Late morning was when the SeaMart was at its least busy—the people looking for surfboards, flip-flops, and sunscreen were already at the beach, and the people looking for Red Bull and beer for their lunchtime refreshment wouldn’t be awake yet for another hour. A couple of tourists were sifting through the postcard display by the door when he entered, but they left without buying a card, which meant he and Mercedes were the only ones in the store.

“Hey, Frank,” she said casually from behind the counter when he approached. She was sifting through a new box of tee-shirts with expert motions, barely looking as she sorted them into piles by size. “What can I do for you?”

“Well.” Face cast one last look over his shoulder, half hoping that another customer or Mark, the guy who worked part time at the SeaMart, would come in and he could put this off until another time. No such luck. “This is a little awkward, and I want to make it clear that I’m not saying this to make trouble for you. Honestly, I’m just trying to help.”

Mercedes’s face got a lot less casual; her eyes narrowed, and without being able to put his finger on just what had changed, Face could tell that she was on high alert. “What exactly are you saying, Frank?”

No sense mincing words. “Barry, John, and Murray and I were at the beach yesterday so Murray could do a little parasailing, and he saw Kyle and Chuck with what he thought looked like...well, Murray has a little experience with law enforcement, and according to him, what he saw looked like Kyle and Chuck digging up packages of drugs on the beach.” Face held his hands up, doing his best to look open, honest, and vulnerable, not the kind to push. “Now, maybe he was just seeing things”— _Sorry, Murdock—_ “maybe what they were up to was perfectly innocent. But we were all pretty disturbed when he told us that, and knowing that you’ve been having a bit of a hard time with Kyle lately, we thought you ought to know.”

Face had expected a lot of possible reactions—denial, angry defensiveness, suspicion, confusion—but he wasn’t expecting the look of total despair that washed across Mercedes’s face. “That goddamned son of a bitch,” she said.

“Chuck?” asked Face.

“Dan.” She thrust the tee-shirt she was holding down on the nearest pile with vindictive force. “Bastard’s got his claws everywhere, and now he’s got them into my son.”

**

“Dan’s pretty much been the king of this town since before I was born.” Mercedes looked down, suddenly seeming older and sadder than usual. Face found he didn’t like it. “He was one of the first to renovate some of the older houses around town and rent them to vacationers. At the time, there wasn’t much there—we all went to school over in Randall, forty-five minutes away, and you had to do your shopping either there or in the SeaMart. But Dan hit it rich—he was renting the houses for cheap, and the tourists came by the busload. And at first, it seemed like a miracle.”

She had shut down the SeaMart for the night, and she and the guys were sitting around the table in the back storeroom. Kyle was sleeping over at a friend’s in the next town over, one Mercedes insisted had no connection to Dan’s drug network, so they didn’t have to worry about him. It had taken a little sweet-talking, but Face had managed to convince Mercedes that they could help if she gave them the whole story. He just hoped he hadn’t lied.

“The town grew like gangbusters. Bill opened the bank, and Dan’s wife Melissa started a sea food restaurant. Suddenly there were jobs in town, and it seemed like opportunities were just there for the taking—businesses were popping up left and right.”

“What was the catch?” asked Murdock.

Mercedes cast him a heavy look. “The catch was that your business had to go through Dan. If you talked to him about it, and you bought or rented your place from him, and he liked you, everything was great. Bill’s bank would give you a loan, or Dan himself would, and he’d make sure you had business. But if you ‘went over his head’”—her tone made it clear that that was Dan’s phrasing and just what she thought of it—“things didn’t go so smoothly. No loan from Bill, and if you got a loan from someone else, bad things would happen to your business. Little things, at first. Shipments of supplies getting ‘lost,’ mix-ups with your paperwork, that kind of thing. Everything very civil. But if you still didn’t play ball with whatever it was Dan wanted you to do, things got a little rougher. Dan’s best friend from high school grew up to be the police chief,” she explained. Face thought he had a good idea what she meant by ‘rougher.’”

“I knew there was something I didn’t like about that guy,” BA muttered, and Face exchanged a glance with him. It didn’t come as a surprise to Face—at this point, he was used to people hiding gross shit underneath a pleasant façade. But it still struck him as…well, disappointing, maybe.

“Anyway,” said Mercedes, clearing her throat, “Brian hated what his old man was doing. He and I married right out of high school and swore we weren’t ever coming back to this town again. But then Brian got cancer.” To Face’s horror, her eyes filled with tears. She looked at her hands; she was twisting her wedding ring back and forth.

Hannibal lay a hand on hers. “It’s all right,” he said kindly. “Take your time.”

She sniffed. “What else is there to say? He lost his job, and my insurance wouldn’t cover the treatments. We came back here. My mom left me the SeaMart when she died, so it was all paid for, and Dan was…very generous, in helping Brian through the chemo and the radiation. And that was when we found out about the drugs.” Her face tightened. “It’s pretty lucrative, apparently. He’s got some dealer in the Caribbean who sells it to him cheap, and what he doesn’t sell to tourists, he sells on up the line to the dealers in Richmond and DC and New York. Chuck and his guys pick it up on the coast and pay in cash.”

“How’s Kyle factor in to all this?” asked Hannibal.

Mercedes shook her head, and her eyes teared up. “I owe him so much money,” she said, her voice low. “Brian’s medicine was so expensive. He’s been after Kyle to get a job with Chuck’s business to ‘teach him responsibility.’ I’ve been putting him off as nice as I can. I’d tell him to fuck off if I could, but….” She rubbed a hand over her face. “One of Chuck’s dealers got arrested two years ago and threatened to turn state’s evidence. His parents’ house burned down, and he changed his tune pretty quick. Dan’s got all the money, and he’s got the cops around here in his pocket.” She bit her lower lip.

Hannibal’s face was solemn. “Is there anyone here who can help you?”

She shook her head. “No. No. The whole town knows what happens when you piss Dan off. Everybody here looks the other way.” She spoke with such absolute, miserable certainty that Face felt a touch of her despair, as if it were contagious. “If I were any kind of mother, I’d leave town. But moving costs money, and if Dan calls in his chips on me, you can bet that he’d destroy the SeaMart before he let me sell it and get out of his clutches.” She looked up, her expression more resigned than hopeful. “So, there’s the story. Still think you can help?”

Face caught Hannibal’s eye and raised his eyebrows. If Dan was as powerful as Mercedes seemed to think he was—and frankly, even if he was only a big fish in a really small pond, as seemed more likely—he could make plenty of trouble for them if they got involved. Hell, he could make plenty of trouble for Mercedes and Kyle if they got involved.

Hannibal gave him a look that Face had gotten very familiar with over the years. It was a look that said, “Be patient and don’t say or do anything you’ll regret.” To Mercedes, he said, “It’s a complicated situation, but my friends and I have some resources that might be helpful. Do you mind if we talk about and see what we come up with?”

She made a nonchalant gesture. “Be my guest.” In a more serious tone, she said, “Don’t tell Dan I said any of this. Please.”

“Hey,” said BA. “You don’t have to worry about that, okay?”

She gave him a wry, tired smile. “I’ve been worrying about Dan ever since I moved back to this town, and knowing he’s gotten my son involved in his drug business, I don’t think I’m about to stop anytime soon.”

They walked home in silence, but as soon as the door was closed behind them and Face had made a quick check to make sure the house wasn’t bugged—call him paranoid, but they didn’t exactly need Dan knowing his next door neighbors were fugitive Army Rangers—he said without preamble, “This isn’t a great situation, guys.”

“No shit, Face,” said Murdock. “Sounded like a day at the beach to me!”

“I mean it’s risky. If Dan is genuinely connected to criminal organizations larger than this town, then he’s dealing with people that I’m not so keen on taking on without the US Army behind me, you know? And if he’s the kind of douche Mercedes thinks he is, then we’re running a big risk letting him know we’re anything other than four college friends having a little reunion.”

“You’re saying you don’t want us to get involved,” said Hannibal neutrally.

“I’m saying let’s _think_ about it before we get wrapped up in another complicated sting to take down _another_ bad guy so the government can find something else to blame on us.”

“Might be good PR,” said Murdock.

“What?”

Murdock held up his forearm, on which he’d scribbled the phrase, “RETURNING WAR HEROES TAKE DOWN CROOKS!” “Wasn’t that part of your plan, Hannibal? Make us look good? Robin Hood always looks good, I think. Especially when he’s Errol Flynn, but I think Russell Crowe has a certain panache, a certain _je ne sais quoi_. And everyone loves that cartoon fox.”

“I don’t give a shit about Disney movies or PR,” BA said. “But I do give a shit about being a guy I can live with.”

“Oh, what?” snapped Face, annoyed. “You wouldn’t be able to _live_ with yourself if we did what we set out to do and laid low? I’m not saying we don’t help Mercedes and Kyle, I’m saying we take a good hard look at what’s actually possible for guys in our position.”

BA made a rude noise. “‘Our position.’ This is what I’ve been trying to tell you about our _position_ , man. Our country may have given up on us, but I ain’t giving up on _it_. We’re not in the army anymore. We’re not on a mission. No one’s gonna tell us what the right thing to do is, so we gotta decide for ourselves. And I’ll tell you what, you can do what you want—all of you can do what you want, I can’t stop you—but letting this motherfucker terrorize the people in this town is where I’m drawing the line.”

Murdock nodded. “I think it’s a good place to draw a line, Bosco. You’re a good line draw-er.”

“You’re not such a good backup when I don’t want to fly in a plane,” said BA, shooting Murdock an irritated look.

“That’s different,” said Murdock with a shrug. “Air is one of the essential elements that make up the universe.”

“All right,” said Face, not wanting to get sucked into one of Murdock’s tangents. “All right. Say we do this—we take down Dan. What happens to all the businesses around here that have been relying on him? He’s a bad guy, I’m not saying he’s not, but you heard Mercedes—he also turned this town around.”

“A town built on drug money and bribing a local kingpin ain’t a town that’s going in the right direction,” said Murdock. “Maybe they can turn themselves in a better one.”

“Fool’s got a point,” said BA. “And it ain’t like the tourists are just going to up and vanish. The place is a popular vacation spot now, and if the people play their cards right, that won’t change. God knows there’s plenty of people out there with too much money who wouldn’t mind getting a good deal on a beach house.”

“Jesus,” Face muttered to himself. “I can’t believe I’m going along with this. You guys know we’d be on the run again, right? Back to creepy-ass motels and me charming ten-year old rental sedans out of used car salesmen.”

“Maybe we don’t have to rent an old car.” Murdock grinned. “Maybe we can go to the next motel via the fun noodle hang glider.”

Face groaned and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling. He was going to need the biggest, fanciest drink money could buy when this was all over. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hannibal smiling, and his suspicions immediately went from 0 to 10. “You’ve been awfully quiet, old man,” he said.

“Just waiting for you boys to come to an agreement,” said Hannibal. “You ready to hear the plan?”

BA and Murdock turned attentively in Hannibal’s direction. Face rolled his eyes, but he had to admit, he was kind of looking forward to hearing what Hannibal had to say. There was only so much tanning on the beach a guy could do.

**

Dan’s house was even nicer on the inside than it was on the outside, and for a party filled with men wearing tacky flowered shirts, it was a little hipper than Face would have anticipated. Well, prior to the revelation about drug smuggling, anyway.

“Frank! John!” Dan greeted them effusively. He didn’t look any different than the last time Face had seen him—a tall, broad, cheerful older man with well-groomed facial hair and terrible taste in clothes—but knowing there was a darker side to him than an annoying tendency to stick his nose in others’ business, Face assessed him the way he would a threat when he looked at him now. Luckily, Face was used to smiling at threats.

“Dan!” he greeted, taking Dan’s extended hand and pumping it as enthusiastically as Dan was squeezing his. “Great party you got here!” He gestured with his free hand to the makeshift bar, where Chuck and a guy from the rental boat company were pouring drinks, the clusters of people shouting to be heard over the loud Carlos Santana blaring from the Pandora on the TV, the open door to the back deck through which could be seen more people and a grill emitting the smell of smoking bratwursts and hamburgers.

“Thanks!” Dan looked from Hannibal to Face and back again. “Barry and Murray couldn’t make it?”

“No,” said Hannibal with one of his enigmatic smiles, “they had other plans tonight.”

“Fair enough!” said Dan with a shrug. “Lemme introduce you to Steve, he works at the police precinct up the road.”

Face could schmooze with the best of them, and Hannibal could be charming when he wanted to be. They circulated where Dan directed them, smiled, shook hands, made small talk. They talked up the town, complained about the stock market, and generally made themselves agreeable. But Face got the distinct impression, more than once, that they were being sized up. The guy bartending with Chuck stared at them curiously until Chuck frowned at him and sent him out to a freezer in the garage for more ice. Bill greeted them with a coolly assessing look. And Steve, who was probably the least subtle person in the room, physically looked Face and Hannibal up and down like he was trying to guess if he could beat them in a fight. Or maybe he just thought they were hot. Face couldn’t blame him there—he’d really put his best efforts into dressing for this party.

“Potential clients,” Hannibal said under his breath as the music switched to pounding Flo-Rida, and Face nodded. Parties like this were probably part of the process of picking out tourists who’d be interested in a little cocaine, and Face and Hannibal—active professionals in stressful but lucrative fields who didn’t seem to come with any family attached—probably looked like good candidates to Dan and his crew.

He wondered how long it would take Murdock and BA to do what they needed to do. Chuck wasn’t a bad bartender, but parties that were also set-ups weren’t really conducive atmospheres to letting go and having some fun.

They grabbed a couple of burgers and fell in with a group of guys who wanted to talk about soccer betting. The conversation had just reached a pretty natural stopping place when Dan came up. “Sorry to interrupt, guys,” he said. “Just wanted to check in and make sure these chuckleheads hadn’t chased you off yet!”

Soccer Fan 1—Face thought his name was Derek, but it was honestly difficult to hear, even out on the back deck—said “No way, man, we’re cool. John was just telling us about going to see the 2006 World Cup in Germany.”

“Wow,” said Dan, impressed. “No shit?”

“No shit,” said Hannibal modestly.

The worst part, Face reflected, was that it was actually 100% possible that Hannibal had been at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. God only knew with that guy.

“Now that’s a story I’m going to want to hear.” Dan took a sip of his drink. At that moment, Face’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Once, twice, three times, before hanging up. He met Hannibal’s eyes, and Hannibal turned to Dan.

“Not here—it’s too long a story to shout twice in the same hour! Is there any place a little quieter to talk?”

“Oh, no problem!” said Dan. Leaning in to speak confidentially in Face and Hannibal’s ears, he said, “I always keep the parties out of the beach walkway—that way there’s always someplace to go and get away from all the noise.”

It was a beautiful night, warm and clear, with a gentle wind blowing over the waves; the moon shone almost full on the Atlantic and the private walkway from Dan’s house to the shore was well-kept and had a really romantic aura in the moonlight. Face could really get used to this kind of lifestyle, he thought with a tinge of regret. Some big house on the beach, where BA could fix up old cars and Murdock could fly little private planes and Hannibal could plot world domination from a study of his own and Face could finally settle down and become the expert in fine wines he’d always intended to become if other things hadn’t gotten in the way.

He sighed. Dan was talking.

“I’m glad you guys decided to come,” he was saying. “There’s a lot of families with little kids that rent in the area, you know, and that’s fine, that’s great, but sometimes you just want to be able to throw a grown-up party, you know?”

“Sure,” said Face. “Hey, speaking of grown-up, I noticed that guy bartending with Chuck got into a little adult entertainment before he came over, huh?” He rubbed a finger under his nose with a significant look.

“Whoa, what now?” Dan gave him a carefully surprised look. “You mean drugs?”

“Nah,” Face said with a casual gesture and a smile. “Just, you know, a little pre-party party.”

Dan sighed. “Well, I’m not gonna lie, some of the guys around here do get into that kind of stuff, but I won’t have it in my house. I don’t throw that kind of party.” His tone was stodgy old guy trying to maintain an air of cool; his eyes were sharply assessing.

“Hey, that’s perfectly fair,” said Hannibal, appeasing. “God knows I get enough of that in New York.”

Some of the suspicion went out of Dan’s eyes, and he leaned back against the railing of the walkway. “ _Wolf of Wall Street_ -type stuff?” At Hannibal’s shrug, Dan shook his head. “Wild.” To Face, he said, “You do that kind of stuff, too?”

“Jesus, man, you make it sound like I’m hanging around in crack dens all day,” said Face, striking the perfect balance in tone between aggrieved, self-righteous yuppie and cool, chill hipster. “Sometimes you just need something to get you through the week. I mean, not that I’m looking to do that here. We’re on vacation—a beach like this is more than enough to do it for me.” He gestured toward the moonlit beach behind them.

Dan smiled, just a small curl of his mouth up in one corner. “No kidding.” They took in the view in silence for a few moments, before Dan said, “If you were, you know, hypothetically interested in something a little harder than alcohol, I might know someone you could talk to.”

“Hypothetically, you mean?” asked Hannibal.

“Absolutely,” said Dan, in a tone that said _We understand each other, right?_ “Completely hypothetical.”

Face felt a feral grin pull at his face. “I mean, like you hypothetically have your nephew and your sixteen-year-old grandson picking up packages of cocaine and dropping off cash on the beach while you distribute it up the eastern seaboard, right?”

Dan’s face went hard and cold in a flash. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, no?” Hannibal matched Dan’s cold expression with one of his own. “I’m sure you didn’t think anyone would notice. After all, most tourists wouldn’t know what to look for, and most of the townspeople pretend they don’t know what you’re up to lest you burn their houses down or ruin their businesses.”

“But we did,” said Face. “We’ve taken down bigger and better than you.”

Dan looked from one of them to the other, his face now tight, like he was determined they weren’t going to get anything more from him. “You can’t prove any of this,” he said. “I’ll have you arrested. That house is full of police officers who would kill for me.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be having anyone arrested,” said Hannibal. “You see, as soon as we knew about the drugs, and your shady dealings with the local business owners, I thought to myself, that kind of thing leaves a money trail. And I'm well aware that your brother the banker’s been helping you launder your dirty money for years, and he’s very good, but here’s the thing.” He grinned. “I’m better.”

He pulled out his phone and pulled something up, holding it up so that Dan could see it. Whatever he saw on the screen made Dan go pale, visible even under the moonlight.

“But we didn’t think that would be enough,” Face said. “So Barry took Chuck’s boats apart piece by piece until he found the drugs, and Murray went around and put tracers on all the money in your stashes, so when your buddies come by to pick up their money for the next round of the import/export game, the DEA will be able to track them down.” He paused for effect. “Hey, you think they’ll be willing to cover for you once they know you were such a dumbass as to have your guys go to the drop sites in broad daylight?” He laughed. “Lucky for us, Murray took notes on where they all were.” That the notes consisted of a hastily drawn map on his thigh was beside the point.

Dan was looking a lot less confident now, sweat running down his temples, but he was good at keeping it together, Face would give him that. “You’re bluffing.”

In the distance, the sound of a helicopter could be heard approaching. Face checked his watch. “Yeah, that’ll be the DEA. Probably our cue to leave, ‘John.’”

“Probably. But before we go….” Hannibal leaned down and stared Dan in the face. “I want to make one thing absolutely clear. If you say a word about your grandson, if you try to give up Kyle in order to buy yourself a sweeter deal, there will be no power on this earth that could keep me from comprehensively fucking you up.”

The helicopter was getting closer now, and real panic was creeping into Dan’s eyes. And probably into Face’s, too. “Who _are_ you guys?”

Face cast a glance at the shore, which was no longer empty. Sometime in the last few minutes, BA had pulled up in a boat; Murdock, of course, was parasailing behind it. He grinned. Their ride was here.

To Dan, he said, “The A-Team.”

**

“I don’t know how I can thank you,” Mercedes was saying to them the next day. Kyle, who looked somewhat dazed by it all, hadn’t said much. Face couldn’t blame him—watching your grandfather, uncle, aunt, great-uncle, and assorted family friends carted off by the feds on the news with headlines like “Local kingpin taken down” had to be pretty disorienting.

“You don’t have to thank us, ma’am,” said BA, who was looking as happy as Face had seen him since they’d first taken down Lynch and Pike. “We’re just glad you’re gonna be okay now.”

“But if you _did_ want to thank us,” Face put in, “you could maybe not give detailed descriptions of us to the feds.”

Mercedes gave him a sharp look—their pretense of being four normal guys on vacation was so tattered that it seemed kind of absurd that they were keeping it up—but she clearly understood the stakes involved, and she nodded seriously. “Of course. Whoever you are, we owe you.”

“You think the town’s gonna pull through?” Murdock asked.

She nodded firmly. “Things are a mess right now, definitely. And we might have some tough times ahead, until the tourists decide the place has settled down enough. But we’ll get back on our feet again, don’t you worry. Everyone I’ve talked to is determined to make this town better than ever.”

Hannibal smiled. “I think we can help with that. The State Department offers rewards for information leading to the arrest of narcotics traffickers, up to $25 million, and as far as we’re concerned, the source of that information is you.” He handed her a flash drive.

Mercedes and Kyle stared at the thing with wide eyes. But Face didn’t have time to enjoy their astonishment and pleasure—his burner rang. Charisa.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted.

“Face,” she said. “I thought I told you that you and your crew had 24 hours to get out of town.”

“We’re on our way now,” Face said. “Thanks for calling in that favor with your buddies at the DEA. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Charisa sighed. “I don’t know whether to thank you or tear you a new one. My bosses want to know just where I got the information for this bust.”

“Anonymous tip,” Face offered. “A perennial favorite.”

“Right.” She was quiet for a moment, and then said, sounding sad, earnest, all the things Face had wanted from her when they’d broken up, “Don’t tell me where you’re going next. I mean it. But…are you going to be all right?”

Face looked over to where Mercedes, recovered from her shock, was hugging Hannibal, who was laughing. He looked ten years younger than he had in the last couple of months. BA and Murdock were talking to Kyle, Murdock enthusiastically doing an impression of Kevin Costner in _The Untouchables_ as he talked about ideas for what Kyle and Mercedes could do with the money and BA looking tolerantly irritated and occasionally interjecting with more realistic ideas. The Sharpie on Murdock’s hands was fading a little. BA’s hair was freshly shaven into his Mohawk.

“Yeah,” Face said to Charisa, “I think we’re going to be all right.”

 


End file.
